


Close Second

by bgharison



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Family, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 19:27:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15468384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bgharison/pseuds/bgharison
Summary: Steve had become rather accustomed -- okay, dependent -- on Danny to navigate him through huge, life-changing epiphanies.  So the fact that Danny wasn’t there for this one would have been humorous, and he might have laughed.Might have, if he could just breathe.





	Close Second

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lavvyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/gifts).



> Polished up and wrapped with care for [lavvyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/). Thank you for being part of my found family.

Steve had become rather accustomed -- okay, dependent -- on Danny to navigate him through huge, life-changing epiphanies.  So the fact that Danny wasn’t there for _this_ one would have been humorous, and he might have laughed.

Might have, if he could just _breathe_.

 

***

 

Danny was stuck at the courthouse finishing his deposition after the winter formal fiasco, so it had fallen to Steve to pick up Gracie.  He’d been on the approved pick-up list since . . . well, he couldn’t remember, really, when Danny had added him.  He sat in the pickup line, thinking back to the days when Grace was in elementary and would come bounding down the steps, her backpack as big as she was.  Now she came down the stairs so gracefully, a stylish messenger bag across her shoulder.  It was somewhat routine, but still, Grace . . . every time, every damn time, she would get this look of apprehension.  Steve had quickly learned to call out a word of reassurance the minute she was within earshot.

“Courthouse,” he yelled through the open window of the passenger door of his truck.  

Grace smiled, then, and hopped up into the truck.

“Just a deposition,” Steve assured her.  “He’s going to pick up Charlie from your mom’s and meet up at our house.  You have homework?”

“Not so much that I couldn’t swim first,” Grace said, grinning at him.  

***

Grace was still in the shower, sluicing off the salt water, while Steve started chopping vegetables for the salad to go with the pizza that Danny was going to pick up.  Her homework was already spread neatly on the far end of the dining table, and Steve grinned as he passed it with a stack of plates and silverware in hand.  Chemistry.  Algebra.  She’d pulled out the subjects that she might need help with, ones that she knew were his favorites. 

It hit him about the time he put down the fourth plate, the smaller, melamine one they used for Charlie, in case his exuberance sent it sailing to the floor.  Again.

He wanted this.  This.  This honestly mundane, completely domestic . . . he wanted _this_.  The two kids, the bittersweet balance of alone time and kid time that came with shared custody, the homework, the dinner, the laundry, the smell of Gracie’s shampoo, Charlie’s sticky kisses, and Danny . . . waiting for Danny’s step on the porch.  Tonight.

Every night.

Waiting for Danny to be there . . . like a sixth sense, watching, waiting, listening, restless until _Danny was there_ , to fill the Danny-sized void that he felt, like a missing limb, like a phantom pain, when Danny _wasn’t_ there, next to him, _where he belonged_.

He had a fleeting thought that maybe it was the shared liver until he realized that he’d felt this way since . . . well, at least since Danny’s visits in prison, his lifeline . . . definitely since Danny had flung back the canvas on that truck in North Korea . . . absolutely since he’d gone to Columbia and pulled him out of that hell-hole . . .

“Uncle Steve?”  Gracie was standing at the end of the table, halted mid-way through pulling out her pencils and calculator, looking at him curiously.  “You okay?”

He wasn’t.  He wasn’t okay, not by a long shot.  He was absolutely terrified.

A muffled, gentle kick at the door.  Steve knew without conscious thought, could picture Danny, balancing pizzas in one hand, holding tight to Charlie’s hand with the other -- the kid was adorable, for sure, but he was also completely and totally reckless and unpredictable, and fast, they’d discovered, that time he’d gone chasing after a cute little gecko and Danny’s knee gave out and it had fallen to Steve to catch up to the toddler, who laughed uproariously when Steve had tossed him into the air and caught him, and blew a raspberry on his belly, and --

“Coming, Danno,” Gracie was yelling, looking at Steve quizzically over her shoulder as she went to the door.

“Hey, Monkey,” Danny said, as the door opened, and they somehow managed a seamless handoff of both pizza and Charlie, Danny kissing her on the cheek in the process.  Grace, Charlie, and pizza headed toward the dining room.  “I’ve got a cold six-pack in the car, be right back,” Danny tossed over his shoulder.

Steve stood in the doorway, watching as Danny hustled back to the Camaro, his slippahs padding softly.  He’d changed into a t-shirt which might have shrunk just a bit in the wash, the way it pulled over his broad shoulders and powerful back, and as he leaned into the car to grab the Longboards, Steve noticed the curve of his ass, hugged perfectly by faded, low slung shorts.  Steve ran one shaky hand over his face as his other arm propped him against the doorway.  He’d known, obviously, that Danny was a very attractive person, hell, anyone not legally blind would notice that, Kono had certainly made more than her fair share of inappropriate comments, especially after that little undercover situation, which had prompted her to declare loudly, without inhibition, to the entire office that Danny was an amazing kisser and . . .

Okay, so armed with that knowledge and apparently an overwhelming episode of self-awareness, Steve realized that not only was Danny attractive, generally, he, Lieutenant Commander Steven McGarrett was attracted to him, specifically.  

Like, specifically and _sexually_ , which, what even and oh, hell yes, there, his anatomy was already well ahead of his brain.

“You okay?” Danny asked, looking at him exactly like Gracie had.

And again, no, no, he wasn’t okay.  Not by a long shot.  He was absolutely terrified, and of course, his adrenaline-crazed system did sometimes equate terror and excitement -- okay, he’d admit it to himself even if he’d denied it vehemently to Danny, not that he thought Danny had ever believed him, and he was even pretty sure he’d caught Danny sneaking a peek to see just *how* literally accurate his assertion was that ‘maniacal, reckless plans and generalized explosives _turn you on Steven_ , I swear to God’ . . .

“Steve?” Danny asked.  He’d reached the top of the stairs and his head was tilted, the same identical head tilt on Gracie and Charlie -- and how, how had Rachel ever thought she could deny that Charlie, blond, blue-eyed, sunshine personified Charlie was Danny’s -- the three of them, all three of them, with the head tilt, and the way they made Steve feel _home_ and _mine_ and _love_ . . .

Danny snapped his fingers in front of Steve’s face, trying to get his attention.

“Hey, honey, I’m home,” he joked.

Steve would admit later that he might have made a strangled noise,  but if so, it was a very SEAL-like noise, and most emphatically not a whimper, no, definitely not a whimper as he reached, frantically, for Danny’s shoulders and hauled him to his chest.  Danny stiffened in surprise until he got with the program and let the bag slip down gently out of his hand until it could thunk, unharmed, those last couple inches onto the porch.

“Danny,” Steve murmured, one big hand coming up to cradle Danny’s head.  “Danny, _you’re_ home.  Do you get it?   You and the kids, you’re everything that is home to me.  God, Danny, I want -- I need -- I -- you, Danny.  You and the kids, it’s --”

Danny’s arms wrapped around him, murmuring nonsense, like he would to soothe Charlie.  And at that point, Steve thought, he could pull this off, he could pull himself together, slap Danny on the back and give him one of his sincere -- God, how sincere, he hadn’t even known -- ‘love you, buddy’ hugs, tell him that he was just damn glad to have him and the kids there, you know, this was really nice, partner, sharing an evening together.  Slap him on the shoulder, thank him for the beer, let’s eat and then you can play with Charlie while I help Grace with chemistry and --

And then, he realized, that Danny had noticed.  Danny had _noticed_ , if his sudden stillness and his stunned but careful pulling away from Steve was any indication and oh shit, oh _shit_ ,  Danny’s teenage daughter was in the house, if Danny _noticed_ , then Danny might _misunderstand_ and --

No.  Steve would rather risk losing Danny’s respect than losing his trust so he blurted it out --

"It’s you, Danny, it’s you, I swear to God.”

“It’s -- come’ere, you goof . . .”  and Danny was reaching for him and pulling him close again and . . .

Oh, thank fuck, Danny didn’t misunderstand, Danny was on board with this very new development, apparently, unless he had, like, Charlie’s sippy cup or something in his pocket.  And then Danny’s hands were reaching, one wrapping around his neck and one tugging a bit impatiently at his shoulder and --

“You giraffe, what --”

And Steve could work with that, he could, hell, everyone he’d ever kissed so far in his life had been shorter than him, he knew how to make this work, he could show Danny and so he did.  He _really did_ , if Danny’s slightly blown pupils were any indication when they paused for air a few minutes later.

“I didn’t know, Danny, I . . . I meant it, I always meant it, I’ve loved you and the kids -- God, I love the kids -- but I didn’t know, not until tonight, I just -- “

Danny smiled up at him, soft and fond.

“You knew,” Steve said.  “How?”

“Well, not my first rodeo, Steve,” Danny said, a little wistful, but mostly still a lot turned on.

“Oh.  I -- oh.  Oh, see, I’ve never felt this way about anyone before,” Steve said.  “I didn’t know.  Until I did.  If you knew, Danny, why didn’t you -- why didn’t you say something, why --”

Danny leaned around Steve and grinned at Gracie and Charlie who were shamelessly observing the whole thing, Grace with a slice in one hand and her cell phone in the other, Charlie looking a little confused but mostly happy.

“I couldn’t risk our friendship,” Danny said.  “I couldn’t risk Uncle Steve.  I had to be sure, Steven.  When you have kids, you have to be sure.  This -- what we already have -- this was too important, too precious to risk.  If it needed to be enough, if it was all that you could give, I could have lived with that.  Before I dared ask for more, I had to be absolutely sure.”

He looked back at Steve, his eyes questioning, challenging.

“You can be absolutely sure,” Steve said firmly.  He cupped Danny’s face in his hands and kissed him again, slipping one hand down into Danny’s back pocket.  “You can be sure of everything,” Steve whispered, a promise for later, for a time when they didn’t have the kids.

“Right now,” Danny said, clearing his throat and stepping away from Steve reluctantly, “I’m sure we have some dinner and possibly some explaining to do.”

Steve heard Grace’s giggle behind him and jumped as if he’d been tased.  He felt his ears turn hot.

“You’re funny, Uncle Steve,” Charlie declared.  “You jumped but Grace didn’t say boo.”

 

***

 

Late that night, Danny peeked in the door to the guest room.

“It’s late, Monkey,” he chided gently.  “Put the cell phone down and get some sleep.”

“Ok, Danno,” Grace said.  She peeked at him slyly over the top of her phone.  “Sweet dreams.”

He pointed at her in mock sternness.  “Okay, no wisecracks from the peanut gallery.”

She giggled again.  “Danno?”

“Yeah, Grace?”  Teenagers.  They could sit silent from school pick up to eleven pm, and just as you reached the end of your energy, that’s when they wanted to get into the deep conversations.  Danny took a deep breath, ready, regardless of his fatigue, to answer whatever and as many questions as Grace had.  He was only a tiny, tiny bit aware of Steve cleaning up in the kitchen, only a little bit conscious of the coffee brewing and the Irish whiskey that Steve had pulled down from the top cabinet.  Grace came first, always, and the man waiting to make him an Irish coffee and hopefully kiss him senseless knew that, and that’s why this was going to work.

“I’m glad Uncle -- I’m glad Steve decided to pick a different base,” Grace said.  “Finally.”

Danny chuckled.  Admitting to his teenage daughter that he was not only fond of her Uncle Steve, but attracted to him . . . well, that had been an interesting conversation.

“We learn about this in Health class.  Sexuality and sexual orientation is fluid, Danno,” Grace had informed him, and damn if she hadn’t been wearing Steve’s Smug Face when she told him.  It had knocked the wind out of him, the bittersweet realization that Steve had been such a part of her formative years.

“You know, this is just the cherry on top, kiddo,” Danny said.  “I think what Steve realized tonight was that we’re a family . . . that he has the family that maybe he wasn’t sure he’d ever have.  This is as much about you and Charlie as it is me.  The fact that, um, there’s an attraction -- why are you rolling your eyes at me?”

“Because the two of you are not subtle.”

“Anyway, as I was saying, the mutual attraction is a bonus,” Danny continued. “Steve and I, we . . . even if that had never happened, you and Charlie would have always had him in your life.  I want you to understand that, Monkey.”

“I understand,” she said.  A wide yawn caught her by surprise.

“Get some sleep, tomorrow’s a school day,” Danny said.  He turned to leave the room and then turned back.  “I love you, Grace.”

“Love you too, Danno.”

 

***

 

Steve was pacing in front of the coffee maker.  Danny had been in Gracie’s room -- and how had he been so oblivious, while Danny’s kid _had a room at his house for years now_ \-- for a long time.  He could hear the murmur of their voices. He’d kissed her father, right there, right in front of her and Charlie and -- that was probably inappropriate.  

So inappropriate, and now she was probably traumatized and it was his fault.

In his distress, he’d failed to notice that the voices had stopped, until he looked up and saw Danny standing in the kitchen, little lines of fatigue around his eyes.  He had untucked his shirt and rolled up the sleeves, his hair loosening from it’s tidy style.

Steve wondered why he had never noticed that Danny looked so damn cuddly and adorable and . . . oh God.  Now that he’d figured it out, he was going to have to try to learn to live without it, because the kids, this would be too much for the kids, and --

"Steven.”

His head shot up.  Danny was smiling at him, a soft, fond smile and it . . . okay, it didn’t look like a goodbye smile.  It looked more like a hello smile.  Steve felt a little spark of hope flare in his chest.

“Is Grace . . . okay?” he asked cautiously.

“Grace?  Is absolutely fine,” Danny said.  “Are you okay?  You look a little frantic, there, babe.”

“She’s okay with . . . us?”

“Ah.  I see.”  Danny wrapped his hands around Steve’s biceps and steered him to a kitchen stool.  He poured two mugs of coffee and splashed a generous shot of whiskey into each.  Steve had pulled out cream and sugar, too, and he added those to his mug.  He shoved a mug at Steve as he sat down on the other stool.

“Gracie is absolutely okay with us, Steve,” Danny said.  “She, ah . . . she’s known.  How I feel.  About you.”

“She -- she figured it out?”  Steve took a sip of his coffee.

“She had an inkling,” Danny chuckled.  “She asked me, I confirmed it.  She’s happy for us -- for me.”

“You’ve . . . you’ve talked to her about, about this?” Steve asked, incredulous, gesturing between the two of them.  

“Yeah, yeah I did,” Danny said.  He sipped carefully at his coffee.  “We talk about everything, me and Grace.  She does with her mom, too.  I mean, there will be limits -- she’s a damn curious little thing, precocious in some ways, but yeah.  We’re open.  Our family, we -- talk about things, we talk about how we feel about things.”

“That’s . . . good,” Steve decided.  And it was, he thought, it had to be, right?  It was just a little unnerving.  He took another gulp of his coffee.

Danny reached out a hand, tentatively, and rested it on Steve’s forearm.

“I think maybe the question is, are you okay with this?” he asked quietly.  

Steve bit at his lip for a moment.  Danny had said that his family talked about things, talked about how they feel about things.  

“I’m not good at talking about how I feel about things, Danny,” he said.  “I -- the, um, the attraction thing is -- I didn’t know.  It makes everything different but at the same time . . . not?  Somehow?”

Danny beamed at him, and Steve felt a smile stretching across his own face.

“But different . . . could be nice?” Danny said.  There was a hint of hesitation in his voice, as if he was steeling himself for disappointment, somehow.  Steve needed that to go away, immediately.

He put his coffee down deliberately, carefully, and cupped Danny’s face in his hand again, his long fingers brushing the back of Danny’s neck, his thumb flicking over his earlobe.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Steve said, his voice going a bit raspy as he leaned in toward Danny.

They met halfway and oh . . . oh, this was even better, Steve thought, when it wasn’t coming as quite so much of a surprise, when he could relax into it.

“Very, very nice,” Danny said.  “Oh, great.  Smug Face.  Just like Gracie.”

Steve grinned.  “Gracie and I share a face?”

“Yes, you animal, my daughter imprinted on you, while she was busy wrapping you around her little finger,” Danny grumbled.  But he was smiling, all the way up to his warm blue eyes.

“Come upstairs with me,” Steve blurted out.  He was sure that he looked as surprised as Danny.  “I just . . . we need to get some sleep, and I don’t . . . I don’t want you to sleep down here.  Too far away.”

Danny nodded, and grabbed their mugs.  He brushed a kiss across Steve’s cheek as he carried them to the sink.  Casual, the way couples do when they’ve been together a long time.  Steve felt something warm uncurl and take up residence, a contentedness that was both new and achingly familiar.

“Unless . . . maybe with the kids here, we shouldn’t,” he said.  “I mean, even though we’re just going to, you know, sleep.  I’d understand if --”

Danny turned and wrapped strong hands around Steve’s shoulders.  “Babe,” he said, sympathetically.  “You’re kind of the last to know, remember?  Kids will be fine with it.  Gracie’s just tripping over one thing.”

“She is?  What is it?  Is it the whole . . . you know.  Guy thing?” Steve asked anxiously.

“Oh, no, that’s a non-issue for her,” Danny said.  “Fluidity and all.”

Steve had no idea what that meant, but he nodded.  He needed Danny to keep talking.

“She’s ah . . . not gonna want to call you Uncle Steve anymore,” Danny said.  “Oh, hey, whoa, we’ll figure it out.  No need for Aneurism Face . . .”

***

 

Epilogue

Steve counted out five plates and handed them to Danny.  Friday nights, he had decided, were his absolute favorites.  Danny added five sets of silverware to the top plate, a cheerful jangle of stainless and stoneware.

“So I was thinking,” Steve mumbled around a random piece of chicken that had slipped out of the wok.  

“With your mouth full, as usual,” Danny sniped absently.

Steve swallowed, stuck his tongue out at Danny.  “An addition, another bedroom and a bathroom, with a door that opens onto the back lanai.  Nahele could use it on kid weekends, and then, if your parents or sisters come visit, it makes a nice guest space for them  . . . Gracie, when she goes off to college, she can use it for summers at home, you know, more privacy . . . “

Danny nodded thoughtfully.  “Yeah.  Yeah, that would be great.”  He started heading toward the dining room with his hands full of dishes.  “Yeah, we’ve got to get Nahele off the sofa,” he tossed back over his shoulder as he went.

The kitchen door had opened, and Nahele stood, still dripping slightly.  He turned worried eyes to Steve.

“I’m sorry, I can -- I don’t have to sleep over --” he started.

Steve stepped over to him, cupped his jaw in his hand.  “Nahele.  No way.  We’re talking about building an addition onto the house, so you’ll have a bedroom.  That’s what Danny meant.  You know Danny thinks that sofa is a torture device.”

Nahele laughed.  “I don’t mind, seriously.  I’m only here a couple nights a month.  The sofa’s not a problem.  I . . . it’s so not a problem, I’m just -- to be here, with you guys . . .”  He ducked his head, suddenly embarrassed.

“Hey, we feel the same, you know that,” Steve said.  He pulled the young man into a hug.  “Our family, we talk about things, talk about how we feel about things.  I’m glad to know that it means something to you to be here. It means a great deal to us, too.”

Nahele nodded against Steve’s shoulder.  The hugs and the communication had been hard-earned, and without Danny . . . well, Steve was just glad that there was no such thing as _without Danny_.

“Okay, would you mind rounding up Grace and Charlie?” Steve asked.  

“Good luck getting Charlie out of the water,” Danny laughed, coming back into the kitchen.  “Tell him there’s pineapple in the stir-fry.  Lord help us, but that will do the trick.  Next thing you know he’ll be putting butter in his coffee.”

Nahele laughed and loped out of the kitchen, all gangly limbs and awkward angles of knees and elbows.  Steve watched out the back window as he headed toward Grace, firmly holding Charlie’s hand as he jumped up and down in the water.  The first tinges of pink sunset sparkled across the water.

Danny stood next to him, an arm slung around his waist, his thumb rubbing absent circles at Steve’s hip.

“Kid weekends are the best,” Steve said, smiling, his voice a little strained around the sudden lump in his throat.

Danny let his hand drift down and slip into Steve’s back pocket.  He tugged gently, turning Steve toward him, and stretched up for a gentle kiss.  Steve grinned, teasing Danny’s mouth with the tip of his tongue.

“Weekends without the kids are second best, though . . . “

**Author's Note:**

> I'm learning my way around [tumblr ](https://bgharison.tumblr.com/) , come say hello!


End file.
